Screen grab from CCTV footage of Tanya Day, who was detained for public drunkenness, at Castlemaine police station on 5 December 2017. An inquest into her death in custody is being held in Melbourne.
Photograph: CCTV footage/Vic Police

A police officer tasked with monitoring the welfare of the Aboriginal woman Tanya Day said he spent just three seconds looking through the cell window because she was in a “very undignified position” and he “didn’t want to get caught leering at her”.

Footage of Day in the cell at that time has shown her lying crossways on the cell bench with her feet on the floor and her head against the wall. She does not physically respond to Wolters’ presence.

Counsel for the Day family, Peter Morrissey SC, asked Wolters why he did not spend more time talking to Day at the cell. Wolters said he wanted to preserve her “dignity”.

“When I observed Tanya I found her to be in a very undignified position for a lady to be in,” Wolters said. “I have seen a lot of males in that position in our cells, a lot of males, but not females, and I found it a little bit confronting … I spoke to her, I got a verbal response from her, and I left her to her own privacy and dignity.”

Morrissey suggested that if Wolters had been concerned about Day’s dignity as a woman, he could have gone to fetch Sergeant Edwina Neale, his supervisor on that shift, to conduct the check.

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“I didn’t see any reason [to fetch Neale],” Wolters said. “She was in a very undignified position for a female to be in, I didn’t want to get caught leering at her.”

“This whole dignity argument is a flat out lie that you’ve made up later, isn’t it?” Morrissey asked.

“Not at all,” Wolters said.

“You found it embarrassing and confronting to deal with an Indigenous woman.”

“Not at all.”

Footage of Day in the cell, played in court, showed her holding her right arm and her forehead in the minutes after hitting her head at 4.51pm.

Wolters agreed that it appeared Day was having difficulty moving her right arm, although he said he did not notice it on the night. He interpreted it as her appearing more intoxicated than she had earlier.

“Around about that time I had formed the opinion that Tanya was not going to make the four-hour rule, she was going to require six hours in custody if she was not collected,” he said.